St. Louis has a lot of great food to offer.  I have lived here most of my life and honestly love the food scene here.  There are always new things to try and old favorites to regularly go to.  Because I'm a local, I often get asked for recommendations on places to eat.  So I figured having recommendations on this blog would be a good way to share my favorites - old and new- and to be able to reference whenever I'm having trouble of thinking of anything.  

So first things first.  I love Italian subs.  I have a few favorites that I like from around town, but my all time favorite, at least for now, is the Hill Boy from Adriana's on the hill.  It's located on Shaw just west of Kingshighway.  It's a tiny little shop that always has a line out the door.  But as I always say- if there's a line, that means it's food worth waiting for.  Adriana herself is always at the cash register (or at least has been every time I have gone) and is friendly and chatty with everyone that enters.  A lot of the sandwiches are even named after her grandchildren.  They do have a Grace- but I haven't tried it yet! My husband and I always get a sandwich and the pasta special and then split them both.  A sandwich is definitely plenty for two people- the sandwich pictured is half.  The pasta sauce is out of this world good.  My favorite red sauce ever.  The Hill Boy has lots of yummy Italian meats, pepperocinis, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and their special sauce/dressing.  Yum.  

For our Valentine's dinner, we went out to Dressel's Public House.  I had never been here before.  Our friends that we went with recommended it, and boy am I glad that they did.  It's a pub atmosphere with tasty food.  We started our meal with the poutine.  It was french fries with a delicious gravy, cheese curds (surprisingly tasty), green onions and pork belly on top.  The pork belly was top notch and probably my favorite part.  I made the mistake of not getting a picture!  For my main course I got the lamb burger, as recommended by our waiter.  It has goat cheese (which is what sold me on ordering it), an apricot chutney and house made bread and butter pickles.  All served with house made chips.  And it was so good! All of the flavors combined were perfect and I would definitely go back and order it again.  

We ended our evening (after a fun time at Casa Loma ballroom) at Ices Plain and Fancy. It is located in the Shaw neighborhood on the corner of 39th and Shenandoah. They make ice cream using liquid nitrogen right in front of you.  Not only is it cool, but it tastes amazing.  It's one of our favorite go to spots- and it definitely helps that it is very close to our house. :) I have been here quite a few times and have gotten a variety of flavors.  I have yet to have one that disappoints.  My husband's favorite is the dulce de leche salted caramel custard.  I do agree that is is delicious, but I like to try new things.  This time it was their temporary flavor "Campfire Smores." It was a toasted marshmallow ice cream with marshmallows also mixed in. Then it was topped with hot fudge, graham crackers, and hershey bar chunks.  They then put a smoked dome on top to give it a smoky campfire flavor.  Not only was it a cool effect to pull of the dome and watch the smoke fly away, but it also added the perfect flavor.  I highly recommend it.  But it won't be there forever, so be quick! If you happen to read this too late- I also highly recommend the nutella flavor- which is on their regular flavors board.  

Last night I was by the loop in U City visiting a friend and decided to finally go and taste Mission Taco since I'm hardly ever in that area.  I had heard from multiple people that this was a good place, so I wanted to try it.  And it did not disappoint.  I ordered two different kinds of tacos.  The first one was the roasted duck.  It was a chile roasted duck, crisp pork belly carnitas, and topped with an avocado serrano sauce.  My pork belly experience at Dressels inspired me to try this one.  And it was very very tasty.  The second taco was the carne asada taco with wood-fire grilled flank steak, baby arugula, queso fresco, and the same avocado serrano sauce.  The sauce was delicious and definitely had a kick to it.  I was a big fan of both and couldn't possibly choose.  The street corn off the cob was also good.  The tacos were definitely the highlight for me though. 

Then for lunch today I went to Lona's 'Lil Eats located on California Ave in the fox park neighborhood.  I went to Lona's for the first time about a week ago (before I started this blog) after hearing rave review after rave review.  And after taking one bite, I'm ready to add another rave review.  Good enough that I needed to go back a week later to take my dad along.  They are the home of the giant rice paper wrap.  You can either build your own or pick one that they have on the menu.  I decided to create my own.  It was filled with grilled chicken, greens, jasmine rice and topped with a thai peanut sauce.  They have lots of tasty sauces to choose from.  I'm also a huge fan of the Lona-Q sauce, which is what my husband got.  Each order comes with a side and I got the peanut ginger lime slaw salad, which was yummmmmmy! I cannot say enough good about Lona's.  I mean I think the fact that I went twice in one week says enough.  

Those are my foodie finds/old favs for this post. Let me know if you have any St. Louis recommendations! Email me at tastewithgrace@gmail.com

Love,

Grace